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Sports Photography -- Capturing the Fleeting Moment
side movement, called panning to have the movement crisp when you expose the film Lets say you are
shooting a car racing event. Even at high shutter speeds, if you hold the camera still and wait on the car,
you will capture a blur. By matching the movement of the subject with the movement of the lens, you
minimize the relative motion between the two.
For subjects coming to you or heading away, their apparent movement isn’t as great. Many people make
up some of the action freezing by getting things coming toward them.
Film is critical in freezing action. Each increase in film speed gets you one more shutter speed. So if you
shoot an event with ISO 100 film and the best you can get is 1/500th of a second, switching to an ISO
400 film gets you to 1/2000th which may be enough to freeze the action. Going to ISO 1600, will take
you to 1/8000th of a second.
Adding high shutter speeds, fast films, monopods, panning, or shooting objects as they come toward
you, and capturing action at its peak will let you freeze fantastic shots.
Giving the illusion of movement.
Many new action photographers worry about freezing action, trying to get the crispest shots possible.
Even veteran photographers will try for crisp shots, but they are not afraid to allow some blurring.
Stop and think about it for a minute. A baseball pitcher throws the ball, the batter swings the bat. Your
eyes don’t freeze the action precisely, so why should your pictures. A blurring bat, or an elongated ball
leaving a blurry arm imply movement. As long as most of the body and the face is crisp a little motion in
the hands, feet, and projectiles is acceptable and in many cases desired. This is another little cheat in not
having that fast of a shutter speed.
Some times, we slow the shutter speed down intentionally to amplify the movement. We have all seen
shots of runners where the background is a blur their arms and legs are a blur, but their body and head
are fairly well focused. Combining panning, slower shutter speeds, and predictable movement and you
can capture some very dramatic pictures showing all kinds of movement.
These types of shots require patients, work, and a lot of experimenting. Don’t hesitate, when at an event
to experiment with different techniques . . . after you get your safeties and your primary shots.
Lighting and Film
Lighting conditions are the single worse bane to sports photographers. There simply are no good lighting
conditions. During the day, under bright sun, there are harsh shadows and it creates shots that have too
much contrast. Morning and late afternoon shots are somewhat better if you can get the light behind you,
but you still end up with some rough shadow conditions. Overcast skies drops the light level too low for
using really long lenses or the shots don’t have popping color.
http://www.photo.net/learn/sports/overview (16 of 21)7/3/2005 2:20:20 AM